Aria of Bone Village
by roisaber
Summary: Aerith arrives on the Northern Continent, and she is made to feel less than welcome by the hard-luck residents of Bone Village. Two angels, one of darkness and one of twilight, are hot on her heels - but she has no choice but to spend a contemplative evening resupplying and resting before entering the Sleeping Forest.


"Oiiiiii! All ashore that's going ashore!"

Aerith looked up from her reverie. She'd felt the ferry dock at Bone Village, of course, and she'd been distantly cognizant of goods and passengers being unloaded. The harbor that served Bone Village was tiny, and proof that the town was no more than a sleepy backwater. At last it was time to gather up her few supplies and disembark from the ship. The voyage had been a brief reprieve from non-stop travel on foot, and Aerith felt like she'd lost something somewhere along the way. With a sigh, she collected her rucksack and made her way out onto the deck. The ferry had been all but empty on its two day journey between the north coast of the Midgar continent and Bone Village. Two graduate students were going there to perform fieldwork, and there'd been some supplies and barter goods loaded into the cargo bay, but that was it. Aerith had made polite but diffident conversation at the communal dinners. She was suddenly shocked to realize she couldn't even remember the students' names.

A cold breeze hit her the moment she stepped onto the deck, raising goosebumps on her clammy skin. The air stank of salt and cold and seaweed rotting under a wintry sun. All of the other passengers had already disembarked. Aerith made her way down the gangplank and onto solid ground, a little relieved to leave her sea legs behind for awhile. The rocking ocean had made her queasy at awkward moments. With solid ground beneath her feet, she turned and watched as the ship's crew drew up the gangplank up onto the ship, raised their sails, and slowly pulled away from the harbor that served the unassuming town of Bone Village.

"Can I interest you in some supplies, Miss?" Twinkling eyes and a mouthful of conspicuously missing teeth greeted Aerith when she turned around. "A map to the Sleeping Forest perhaps?"

She smiled wanly. She was wearied by her trip, but stocking up on food and water wouldn't do her any harm if she was to press on to the Forgotten Capital. All she knew was that she'd seen it somewhere in her dreams.

"I won't need a map," she answered diplomatically, "but I'd appreciate it if you escorted me to your shop."

The battered old man grinned broadly, and Aerith could smell booze through the peddler's potent halitosis.

"Of course, of course! Right this way!"

He hobbled in front of her, leading her right through the main square of Bone Village. It was the smallest town she'd seen so far, with most of the buildings constructed out of locally available materials - most notably, whale bones. There was no great mystery as to how the town got its name. It was a research station, a university outpost, and a last, sad redoubt for those who'd tried to make their mark on the big city and failed. A few bedraggled crows pecked at the ground, trying to fill their bellies with worms before the cold afternoon air turned into evening hoarfrost. There was a ramshackle bar and exactly one general store. The peddler pushed aside the animal hide flap that separated it from the rest of the town and graciously held it open for her to enter.

"My, what a generous selection," Aerith politely lied.

"The finest store on the whole latitude," the peddler replied with a grin. Aerith easily guessed that it was the only store on its latitude.

"I'll need a weeks' worth of food and water, if you can supply it."

The peddler eyed her suspiciously. "You're not with the university? There's nothing up here for tourists, young lady."

"I'm - " Aerith searched for words and failed. Finally she said, "Can you supply me or no?"

The old man carefully scanned at her from the top of her head down to her very shoes. Finally, he acquiesced.

"Three hundred Gil." He seemed genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry but I can't do you any better than that. I only get one shipment a month and the freight charges eat me out of house and home."

Aerith counted twelve fat golden coins and pressed them into the peddler's outstretched hand. There was no doubt he was charging her an arm and a leg, though he probably wasn't lying about the expense of getting things shipped so far north. The old man couldn't hide a greedy smile as he pocketed her currency, and then he puttered around the store, collecting goods to fill her order.

"You aren't going into the Sleeping Forest, I pray? Most of those who as enter don't come back out, and a pretty girl like you must have someone left to live for."

Aerith shivered.

"I'm looking for news of my mother," she finally answered, semi-truthfully.

The peddler looked up from a nearly-empty shelf. "There'll be little news of anything from the Sleeping Forest. Only regret and sleep."

Aerith felt her hand reflexively reach for the useless materia braided into her hair, and she made herself consciously drop it back down.

"The Planet tells me where to go," she whispered.

Superstition still held strongly among many of the residents of Bone Village, and the peddler carefully crossed himself. He seemed to wrestle with an internal dilemma and then finally came to a conclusion.

"I trust you know your business," he said. "Still, you won't allow me to interest you in a map? I'll even offer it for a mere ten Gil. That's less than I paid for it."

"A map would only get me lost."

Finally the peddler sighed and packed the collection of goods into Aerith's rucksack. He might have overcharged her but at least he hadn't skimped – true to his word, there were a full seven days of supplies, even if she ate and drank generously. She tried to tip him an extra twenty Gil but he steadfastly refused.

"I expect you'll need it more than I," he explained.

"Is there an inn somewhere in this town?"

He nodded. "It's across the square. The biggest yurt on the western side of the street."

Aerith thanked him and took her leave. The sun was just setting, and the air grew noticeably colder by the minute. She could feel her nipples digging into the fabric of her dress, not from arousal but from the pitiless, clinging chill. She hurried across the square and into the inn, heedless of the confused, curious, or outright suspicious stares of those who called Bone Village home. The innkeeper was an embittered old woman who fought with her for ten minutes over pricing until Aerith finally gave in and paid a full hundred Gil to sleep on stinking animal hides next to a poorly-tended fire in the center of the room. There was another traveler sharing the open hearth, but Aerith refused all polysyllabic conversation with him until he finally drifted off to sleep. Aerith could hardly sleep at all.

"My daughter."

Aerith's eyes snapped open. The hunter was breathing rhythmically next to her, and hadn't woken to the sound of the disembodied voice. The innkeeper slept in the loft above them. Her snores ought to be strong enough to bring even the whale bone struts of the yurt back to life, but they were both out cold. Aerith strained her ears but heard nothing more until the piercing cry of a rooster woke her at the first light of dawn.

Aerith made her way out of the inn, but not before the old crone caught her washing her face with a bowl of stale water.

"Are you going to be paying for that, then?"

Aerith glared. "Fuck off."

The day outside was mercilessly bright, but for all the dazzling sunlight it was also extremely cold. Aerith surrendered to the weather and bought a cured shawl of some monster she didn't recognize, and that was enough to help keep some of the chill at bay. The whole town seemed to watch as she left the town via the northern exit, and some of the poor, pathetic villagers crossed themselves as she passed. Rumors had spread about her without any words. She, she came from the distant south, the immoral city of Midgar. The Planet spoke to her. She was a prostitute. She bore a curse from the stars. She could almost hear the theories on their lips, just as certainly as she could read them in their haughty minds. Was this what her birth mother had endured for all those years after she'd been found out as being a Cetra? She shivered.

The northern gate looked like a solid mass of steel, but it opened easily at her touch. Not a word was said to her as Aerith took a deep breath and walked through, letting it clang shut behind her. The woods looked inviting, with pastel light showering from the canopy and painting the sturdy undergrowth with a kaleidoscope of colors. A path plodded into the rising and falling dells as far as she could see. Instinctively, Aerith knew her best chance for success was to keep religiously to the dirt trail. She took careful steps and tried not to think.

"My daughter, you come at last."

Aerith suddenly looked up and felt a sharp stab of panic. As if in a dream, she could remember nothing that had happened for hours, and worse, she'd somehow strayed off of the path and deeply into the woods. How was it possible? She'd only lost her concentration for a second. Now, she was trapped in an inferno of color, and though she looked desperately into the foliage in all directions, she couldn't see the path or even make out the sun for direction.

"Don't be afraid."

She clutched to her rucksack tightly. For a moment, it was all she had to remember the human world and even those two angels she was fleeing.

"Don't be afraid."

Aerith summoned her courage, and cried out, "Who are you!?"

The woods were quiet for a minute.

"I am your mother."

"My mother is dead!" Aerith spat bitterly.

For a long, pregnant moment, the woods returned to silence. Then a butterfly fluttered down from the canopy and slowly flapped in front of her face. Unbelievingly, Aerith reached up with her hand to touch it, but it danced away before Aerith could allow it to alight on her finger. It drew up close to her, and then pulled back away. Suddenly it dawned on Aerith that the butterfly wanted her to follow it.

Aerith said, "I'm sorry, mother!"

But the butterfly couldn't answer.

After only a few seconds, Aerith crashed through a small bunch of ferns and found herself back onto the path. The butterfly had led her back to her proper course, defeating the Sleeping Forest. Its intentions might not have been cruel, but for a mere human – or even a Cetra – they could have been deadly. Still, Aerith couldn't shake her sense of quiet unease. The Planet might be leading her away from the two pursuing angels – but what was the Planet leading her towards?


End file.
